Conscription = Slavery ?

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(12-04-2016, 06:27 PM)Dill Wrote: I'm not a military guy, but I don't think conscription, in itself, is slavery or even a bad thing. Much depends on what sort of military you are conscripted into and for what purposes. E.g., British style impressment in the 18th and early 19th century might qualify as slavery or involuntary servitude.

In the US context I don't think it ever has been slavery. People are not bought and sold. They are paid. They have time off. There is time limit for service. The goal is not some master's profit but preserving the conditions under which the rest of society, including possibly the conscript's family, can remain free. 

We can have discussions like this because the US has not really been under existential threat since the height of the Cold War, and we've not been engaged in a hot war that was an existential threat since WWII.

Until recently, Germans had universal male conscription. Those who did not want to join the military could serve the country in other capacities, such as ambulance drivers.  I don't know why that would be bad in the US, where so much of the population is so far from sacrificing anything to keep their 1st-world lifestyles.  Perhaps people would take politics more seriously if they had some skin in the game.

I heard Charlie Rangel argue for this years ago. I think it is an idea with merit.

But here is an idea I really think has merit. You want to win hearts and minds and have people love and respect America? Give the Peace Corps a budget that is 10% of the DOD budget. For 2016 the Peace Corps budget was $410 million, the DOD budget was $585 billion. 

Our culture, simply put, glorifies and funds war. I would like to see the results if it glorified and funded peace at just 10% of the rate it funds war.